Monday, May 30, 2016

Linda Woolverton's thoughts on the new live-action trailer and an update on Maleficent 2.

The Beauty and the Beast hype is very real. On Monday, the first teaser trailer for the live-action remake starring Emma Watson was viewed a record-breaking 91.8 million times -- which just goes to show how much Disney's animated classic has stuck with fans over the years.
I
recently got a chance to speak with Alice Through the Looking Glass
screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who also wrote the original 1991 Beauty
and the Beast movie. While she's not involved with the new remake, she
said she was very excited to see the film drawing from her take on the
story and characters. "It makes me really, really happy," she said, upon
learning how many people watched the teaser in such a short amount of
time. "It's fantastic. I'm really excited about what they're doing."
...
The screenwriter also offered an update on Maleficent 2,
which is that she's currently in the middle of writing the script.
"This very minute, it's blinking at my computer," she laughed. Of
course, she couldn't offer story details, but she did say the sequel
will focus on "the next step in the relationship between Maleficent and
Aurora."
The Beauty and the Beast remake hits theaters March 17, 2017, followed by Maleficent 2 sometime after that.

In light of the magical, record-breaking reveal, Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast is the talk of the town at Disney, after the first trailer stormed past 90 million views in only 24 hours.
Pegged to dance into theaters in early 2017, Condon’s modern
reimagining is part of a grand vision at the House of Mouse to
reintroduce its prized catalog of fairytale adventures, replete with
live-action sequences and bleeding-edge CGI. In 2016, we’ve already seen
The Jungle Book and, more recently, James Bobin’s fantasy prequel Alice Through the Looking Glass maintain that momentum, which will eventually lead to Angelina Jolie’s return in Maleficent 2.
Beyond a confirmation that it exists, there’s not much to report regarding the nascent sequel. But while doing the rounds for Alice Through the Looking Glass, esteemed Disney scribe Linda Woolverton offered a brief status report on the film, revealing that at “this very minute, it’s blinking at my computer.” Woolverton remained mum on story details, but did go on to tease that Maleficent 2 represents “the next step in the relationship between Maleficent and Aurora.”
In the grand scheme of things, and now that Disney has staked out a number of release dates through 2019
(namely July 28, 2017, April 6, 2018, Aug. 3, 2018, Dec. 25, 2018 and
Dec. 20, 2019), we fully expect Jolie to make her return as the
gleefully dark fairy at some point before 2019.
As for Beauty and the Beast, Woolverton went on to heap
praise on the film’s reveal trailer, before pointing to the complex
relationship between Belle (Emma Watson) and the Beast (Dan Stevens).

“It makes me really, really happy,” she said, upon
learning how many people watched the teaser in such a short amount of
time. “It’s fantastic. I’m really excited about what they’re doing.”
“There’s been a lot of talk about Stockholm syndrome, that [Belle]
fell in love with her captor,” she said. “But I disagree! She was
captured, but she transformed him. She didn’t become, you know, an
object. [Laughs] She didn’t turn into a beast! She transformed him. So
it was certainly the transformative power of love and what it can do.”

Beauty and the Beast has been penciled in for a release on March 17, 2017. As for Maleficent 2,
Disney is yet to unveil its release plans for the fantasy sequel, but
it’s expected to occupy one of those aforementioned dates.